Beschreibung:

Archive of Lenny Bruce material from "Count" Lewis DePasquale: 1. Eight Autograph Notes Signed ("Lenny" or "Lenny Bruce") to "Count" Lewis, 11 pp in total, between 1960-1965, two on hotel letterhead ("Tidelands Motor Inn", "Ritz Carlton, Atlantic City"), others on torn envelopes, and assorted papers and scraps; 2. Ten various pieces of autograph correspondence signed by Lenny Bruce (mostly as "Lenny"), 25 pp in total (some of these in Count Lewis's hand), including autograph notes, drafts for telegrams, and a check made out to "Lewis DePasquale"; 3. Original manuscript by "Count" Lewis being a draft of a memoir of his friendship with Lenny Bruce, mostly 1970-1971, but continued 1999-2000, 158 pp in total (52 manuscript, 70 typescript, 26 pp of photocopied typescript), some annotations; 4. 29 original color slides of "Count" Lewis and Lenny Bruce and their families; 34 original color slides of "Count" Lewis and family behind-the-scenes of Bob Fosse's "Lenny" with Dustin Hoffman; assorted negatives, contact prints, and photographs of Lenny Bruce; 5. 20 vintage audio cassettes, twelve 3" reels, four 7" reels, and one 5" reel of ¼" magnetic audio tape, and 2 VHS cassettes, of recorded interviews on Lenny Bruce, performances of Lenny Bruce, approximately 5 hours of interviews with "Count" Lewis by Larry Jordan and Peter Keepnews about Lenny Bruce;. 6. Two copies of Bruce's first book Stamp Help Out (Self-published, 1965) and a telegram from Lenny to Bobby Young regarding it's distribution; a copy of Margaret Bourke-White's You have Seen Their Faces" with an inscription to Lenny, and a few notes in his hand, many faces cut-out; two autograph notes signed ("Sally") from Lenny's mother; a statuette of a boxer, with engraved plates to base, "The Lenny Bruce Piss All Over the Ring Award" and "Presented by Count Lewis to Dustin Hoffman"; a copy on red vinyl of Lenny Bruce's Interviews for our Times (Fantasy 7001); a Super-8 film by "Count" Lewis; and assorted magazine and newspaper articles and other ephemera. Provenance: "Count" Lewis DePasquale; by descent. "Count" Lewis played as an organist with such greats as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Harry Belafonte, and toured with Charlie Ventura, Roy Eldridge, Al Hibbler and Sonny Stitt, among others. Born Lewis DePasquale, he was known widely and simply as "Count." One early morning in January 1960, after his show at the Sir John Hotel in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, Count was introduced to Lenny Bruce, a volatile comedian with two records that were making the rounds. Lenny was immediately taken with the young organist who seemed equally comfortable in black clubs and white, and after an animated breakfast, he invited Count to come open for him (with a significant pay raise) at the El Patio Club across town. Over the next 6 years, Count played, worked, wrote movies, capered and tangled with Lenny up and down the East Coast. The material here in various media reveals the many faces of Lenny Bruce, including a 4 pp draft of a note for an unnamed doctor on behalf of Count's son (who is hydrocephalic), pictures of their families, notes for an insurance scam for Count, Lenny and Sally Marr (his mother), and numerous notes to promoters and club owners, including a draft of a characteristically poetic telegram to Max Gordon of the Village Vanguard, in part: "Please, Please Max I know that I like Jackie Gleason and never like Bud Abbott & Lou Costolo./ Played miniature golf but never bowled, wouldn't drink out of a glass with lipstick on/ it. Will fress up strange shmushkie. I reflect the taste of a big buying market." For many years, Count retained this material and used some in writing his memoir of life with Lenny, for which Doubleday arranged a ghost writer at one point but which never was completed. The manuscript contains over 150 pages of first-hand stories, many with related ephemera, including Lenny's near overdose in the Bartram Hotel in Philadelphia (Count who didn't use shot